


you say it's gone, though it never is

by yennefers



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: M/M, Post-Season/Series 13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 12:09:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17263952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yennefers/pseuds/yennefers
Summary: It's New Year's Eve. Dennis, not for the first time, has made some regrettable choices.





	you say it's gone, though it never is

“Okay, slow down. What are you trying to tell me, exactly?”  
  
“I said, there’s an ice rink up near the park,” Mac repeats, impatiently. “One of those temporary ones. I thought maybe you’d wanna go? It’ll be a blast, we could invite the guys too -”  
  
Dennis sighs. He puts his compact down.  
  
“Mac, you can’t skate.”  
  
“I can!” Mac protests, scowling. “I can too skate, dude. Charlie taught me. Back when we won that radio show thing.”  
  
“Right,” Dennis says. “Whatever. Look, why don’t you just ask Charlie if you’re that set on going?”  
  
“‘Cause I wanted to ask you,” Mac says, like it’s the most obvious answer in the world, and Dennis’ head is hurting. His skin is breaking out and the apartment is too cold. He was intending to spend the evening alone and as far away from anyone as possible, and now Mac’s boots are shedding mud and melting sleet all over his bedroom floor.  
  
“Why?” Dennis mutters, more to the world in general than anything else. He massages his temples, eyes closed. Mac clears his throat.  
  
“Well, I thought… y’know. Maybe we needed it.”  
  
Dennis freezes.  
  
“We?”  
  
“Yeah,” Mac says, in that singularly stubborn and earnest tone he uses when he’s got a point to prove. “I don’t know, I just - we haven’t really had time to talk much, I guess, since you got back? I thought it’d be nice. Catching up, or whatever. And New Year's Eve was always… it was our thing.”

“Mac, there is no we,” Dennis says. “There has never been a we, in this scenario.  _We_ do not need anything.”  
  
Mac sighs.  
  
“Jesus, if you wanna say no, just say no -“  
  
“And for the record? New Year's has never been our thing. I don’t know where you got that idea from.”

Mac’s face falls into a frown.

“We always spent New Year's together,” he points out. Dennis rolls his eyes.

“You following me around doesn’t count as spending it together.”

“Whatever, dude,” Mac says - he’s scowling properly now, his voice getting louder. “Just forget it, all right, I was only asking -”

“Exactly,” Dennis snaps. “You keep asking me shit, you keep wasting my time, and I am fed up of having the same goddamn conversation with you every night! I don’t want to go anywhere with you, Mac. We’re not even friends at this point, let’s be honest. We don’t need to catch up. We have nothing to talk about.”  
  
There’s a long silence. Mac’s voice, when he speaks, is very small.  
  
“You don’t wanna be friends with me, Dennis?”  
  
Dennis swallows. His heart flips uncomfortably, like it’s caught up in his throat.  
  
“Look, you’re not - you’re not understanding my -“  
  
“Wish you’d told me earlier,” Mac says, quietly. “That’s all.”  
  
He says it so soft and low that it’s like a punch to the gut. Dennis has never hated him so much. Hated anyone so much. Never in his life.  
  
“I’ll ask Charlie,” Mac mutters. His eyes are fixed on the floor as he backs out the room. “Whatever. Sorry for bothering you.”  
  
Call him back, something inside says. Call him back, say his name, but Dennis swallows and stays quiet - and a minute or so later he hears the front door click shut.  
  
Mac didn’t slam it. That somehow makes things worse.  
  
“Shit,” Dennis mutters.

  
*

His first instinct is to get drunk. Which, while appealing, rarely solves anything at all. His second instinct is also to get drunk. His third, and the one Dennis ends up reluctantly following, is to find Frank.

“You’re supposed to take the shell off,” Dennis points out, standing a safe distance away from Frank’s barstool. “You’re aware of that, right? It’s important to me that you’re aware of that.”

Frank grunts. He picks up a fresh handful of peanuts from the plastic bag in front of him, tossing them back.

“Too many steps,” he says, slightly muffled. “It’s whole or nothin’. Your generation’s too soft on shit like this, Dennis -“

“Great,” Dennis says loudly, “whatever, I don’t care - you and Mac, you’re buddies now. Right?”

“I’m not bangin’ him,” Frank says. “If that’s what you’re asking.”

“It is not,” Dennis says.

Frank raises his eyebrows.

“You sure?”

Dennis closes his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. He grits his teeth.

“I’m very sure.”

“All right,” Frank says, shrugging. “Suit yourself. Spit it out, I don’t got all day.”

Dennis sighs.

He’s made it this far, at least. There’s no point in backing down now.

“What’s the best way to make Mac happy?”

Frank eyes him for a moment, still chewing. After a long moment he nods, wisely.

“So  _you’re_ the one bangin’ him. All right. I get it.”

“Nobody is banging!” Dennis snaps. “There is no banging involved, for chrissakes, this is an entirely selfless act I’m trying to pull here -“

“Keep it down,” Frank says, flapping a hand at him. “I don’t see a problem with it. Bang him, don’t bang him, no skin off my ass either way.”

“Frank, I swear to God -“

“You want my advice?”

Dennis stares up at the ceiling. He closes his eyes.

“Yes,” he says. “Bizarrely.”

“Seafood buffet. Wad of hundreds. Alcohol. Done.”

“Why,” Dennis says. “Did I come to you.”

“And you gotta make sure,” Frank continues, “that the buffet has shrimp. Bacon wrapped shrimp. Buffets without shrimp aren’t worth shit. Artemis and I used to -“

“No,” Dennis says. “Shut up.”

Frank scowls at him.

“The hell are you -“

“Shut up,” Dennis repeats, waving a hand in his direction. “I have an idea.”

“Bacon wrapped shrimp, Dennis,” Frank calls out - but Dennis doesn’t answer, walking determinedly towards the front door and out into the street.

*

It takes him just under an hour of yelling, bribery, and around five or six iterations of  _yes, I will hold,_  but he gets the table booked. 8pm, one of the private spots by the window that they used to favour.

Four hours is running things a little tight, prep-wise, but Dennis has done more in less time before. Guigino’s thankfully isn’t all that strict with their dress code - with any luck he’ll be able to get away without ironing anything.

Mac sighs. It crackles heavily down the phone line.

“You did what?”

“I booked us a table,” Dennis says. “Keep up. 8pm tonight, so we’ll need to keep things nice and streamlined -“

“Dennis, I’m not going.”

Dennis, midway through pacing on the sidewalk, grinds to a halt.

“The hell do you mean you’re not going?” he demands. “I’m being considerate. That’s friend shit, right? Going to dinner?”

Another sigh echoes its way through the speaker. Dennis finds himself listening to the sound of the dial tone before he has time to reply.

*

The problem, Dennis decides, is Frank. Frank clouded his judgement. Frank made him overthink it. Dennis doesn’t need anyone’s advice - all he needs is to talk it over. He can figure this out by himself.

“So then I busted my ass getting a reservation,” he tells Charlie, picking at his fingernails as he leans back against the wall. “And he hung up on me. Which - y’know, whatever, I’m fine with it, if Mac wants to -“

“Not really sounding fine with it, bro,” Charlie points out. He’s sat on the ratty futon, head bowed, and he doesn’t look up from whatever he’s doing in his lap. Dennis frowns.

“Yes, I do,” he says. “Don’t tell me how I sound, Charlie. I know how I sound. I sound fine with it. This is all his fault anyway, he took it completely out of context. I didn’t mean I  _hated_ him, I meant - I just hate the idea of him, sometimes.”

“D’you know how to purl?”

There’s a brief, strained silence.

“Excuse me?”

“Y’know,” Charlie says. “Like… purling. Purl stitching. ‘Cause I cannot get it right, bro, it’s annoying the shit out of me.”

Dennis shuts his eyes. He sighs, long and hard, and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Have you cast on?”

“Yeah.” Charlie picks up the lumpy piece of fabric in his lap, squinting at it. “Done that. I keep getting -“

“It’s a knit stitch in reverse,” Dennis says, impatiently. “Just do it back to front.”

“So… from the right?”

“Yes, from the right,” Dennis snaps. Charlie, with painstaking slowness, picks up the knitting needles. Dennis shuts his eyes again and counts down from fifty.

“Is this a thing?” he says, once he’s reached zero and the murderous intent has died down. “Is this a thing that you’re doing, now?”

Charlie glances up at him.

“Well, Frank found a bunch of wool in the alley,” he explains, struggling his way through another stitch. “So yeah, I guess. We’re gonna learn together. Get our friendship back on track.”

“Weird,” Dennis says. “That’s just - look, whatever, can we get back to my situation?”

Charlie sighs. He puts his knitting down on the side table, and Dennis winces as the fabric catches on a loose screw.

“Dude,” Charlie tells him. “You’re way overthinking this.”

“I know  _that_ , Charlie -”

“No, I mean like… just go back to basics, y’know? Don’t get all complicated about it. Watch a movie or something. Isn’t that what you guys used to do on New Year's?”

Movies are safe. Movies are a known and familiar territory - that, at least, is one thing about his relationship with Mac that hasn’t changed. It doesn’t matter how tumultuous your connection with someone is, how deeply in flux the two of you are: if you have a couch, Dutch Schaefer stripped down to the waist, and a screen to watch him save the world on, then you have a chance of recovery. That’s how it’s always been.

“Huh,” Dennis says.

“Told ya,” Charlie replies, sounding satisfied. “Hey, you want some of this wool? ‘Cause you should get in on this knitting thing, dude, it’s super relaxing -“

“I don’t want any alley wool,” Dennis assures him, walking backwards towards the door. Charlie shrugs.

“Suit yourself,” he says. Dennis hears the needles start clicking again as he walks out into the hall. “Later, bro.”

*

His elation at finding a solution lasts the whole drive down the block and then a few minutes more, before grinding to a halt when he pulls up outside the empty, musty looking storefront that used to be Mahndo Video.

_Final Flash Sale! 07/07/17 - 10/07/17,_  the sun-faded leaflet stuck to the door announces. Dennis stares at it for thirty seconds that stretch into a minute, and then he reaches out and pockets it without really knowing why.

There’s always the bright new convenience store down the street, he reasons. They probably have a video section. It’ll be full of last summer’s blockbusters and cheap 2000’s rom-coms, the way every convenience store video section is. He’ll be lucky to even find a copy of anything pre-millennium.

No New Year's movie night, then. No movie night, and no dinner reservations either; but it doesn’t matter, he’ll find another apology. He’ll find something better. He knows Mac, he knows him better than anyone, he  _knows_ him - but the lie doesn’t hold, burning and falling apart like ash, like smoke.

(Dennis thinks about it, sometimes. Late in the evening or lying awake before dawn. There’s a universe out there where he never left the bar that night. There’s a universe where he did, and then walked back through the door a week later. He was out of step in North Dakota but he’s out of step here, too, in a hundred small ways that grate on him like splinters or mosquito bites - and the four people in the world Dennis considered utterly resistant to change have somehow shifted in his absence. Grown into stranger, newer things. They all know each other, and Dennis doesn’t know them. The world across the state line was lonely and unfamiliar, but Philly feels the same way - he’s out of place no matter where he goes.)

“Turns out they were using it for money laundering,” Dee’s voice says from behind him. “The McPoyles, I mean. It was this whole thing. There was a court case about it.”

Dennis swallows. He clears his throat.

“Did you go?”

“Sort of.” Her footsteps get closer. “We showed up to the hearing and everything, but then the judge said some bullshit about a history of ‘unruly behaviour’ - you should’ve seen Charlie, they had to call security on him to get him out.”

“Sounds like fun,” Dennis mutters. Dee snorts.

“It was,” she says, knocking their shoulders together as she takes a final step forward.

She looks good, Dennis notes, turning to glance at Dee’s profile. Healthy. She walks with her shoulders a little higher now, her chin up; she’s got new clothes and a new haircut, and she seems at home in both. Jealousy curdles in his stomach.

Dee sighs.

“I had to waste two hours of my life on the phone to Mac because of you.”

Dennis’ heart lurches up in his chest, stuttering.

“Did he -“

“Relax, idiot,” Dee says, exasperated, flicking him on the shoulder. “I got told the whole story, unabridged, and I got told it about five times, I know all about this shitshow.”

“I hate you,” Dennis mutters, scuffing the sidewalk with the toe of his shoe.

“Like how you hate Mac, right?”

“I don’t hate Mac, Jesus Christ -“

“That’s not how he sees it,” Dee counters.

There’s a fight lurking under the surface. Dennis, usually, would let off some steam by provoking it: but he’s tired, and the sun is sinking slowly, and Mahndo Video is empty for the first time he can remember since it opened back in ‘87.

“You need to sort this shit out,” Dee says, not unkindly. “Because it’s getting on everybody’s nerves.”

“I don’t know what to say to him,” Dennis mutters. Dee rolls her eyes.

“You think everyone goes into every conversation knowing what they’re gonna say?”

“I do,” Dennis points out. Something cold hits his nose: he looks up, stifling a sneeze, and his shoulders slump down at the sight of sleet falling from the iron grey sky. The evening is drawing in.

“What are you doing tonight?” he asks - scrabbling for something, anything - but Dee just waves a hand at him, her expression turning stern.

“Uh-uh. No. I’ve got a date and she’s picking me up, I don’t have time for you to mope. My place is off limits to all of you assholes until tomorrow.”

“Come  _on_ , Dee -“

“This shit doesn’t just go away because you don’t feel like dealing with it,” Dee insists. “Drive me home, pull your head out your ass, apologise to Mac for once in your life. Not that hard.”

Dennis’ heart is doing something very strange: speeding up sickeningly, settling high up in his throat.

“I don’t know how.”

Dee rolls her eyes.

“Dennis -“

“No, I’m not -“ Dennis rubs a palm over his eyes. They’re stinging. “Not like that. I mean I don’t know how to… how to talk to him. Anymore. I don’t know how to talk to any of you anymore.”

Dee’s quiet. Dennis wishes he could be, too - but it’s like something inside him has worked itself loose, and the words keep coming.

“I don’t fit,” he says, thickly. “I ruined it, and now I don’t fit.”

It’s been a long time, he realises, as her bony arms shove their way around his shoulders, since Dee last hugged him. He’d forgotten how tightly she clings; the way her sharp nails dig into his back like she’s daring him to try pulling away. Her perfume still smells the same.

“What are you -”

“Dennis,” Dee snaps, her voice oddly tight. “Shut  _up_.”

Dennis does. He stays quiet as Dee pulls back, awkward and abrupt, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand.

“You are going to drive me home,” she says, firmly. “And you’re going to talk to Mac. And if you even  _think_ about - if you ditch me again, I’m following you, and I’m shoving your stupid, sorry ass in the boot of my car and driving you right back.”

“I think,” Dennis says. It comes out hoarse; he clears his throat. “I think that’s kidnapping. In most states.”

“Dennis,” Dee snaps. She flicks her hair out of her face, irritated - she’s done that since they were kids. Even in high school, that year when she cut her hair short and there hadn’t really been anything to flick at all.

Dennis swallows.

“I won’t.”

It’s all his throat lets him say, closing stubbornly around the other words that try to make themselves heard. Dee takes a step back. Something settles into place on her features.

“Right,” she says, a little stilted. “Well. Good.”

“You still want a ride home?” Dennis says, clawing his way back towards familiar ground. Dee nods.

It’s a quiet drive - Dennis can’t tell if that’s good or bad, but he’s relieved either way. Dee pointedly looks out the window the whole time at the slow falling sleet. Dennis catches himself looking for Mac’s figure on every street corner, scanning the road at every stop light. The urge to find him tugs persistently in his gut.

“Don’t fuck it up,” Dee says, as Dennis pulls the Range Rover to a halt outside her apartment. Dennis rolls his eyes.

“Happy New Year to you too,” he mutters - and Dee shoots him the finger as she walks towards the door of her building, not looking back.

*

Mac isn’t answering his phone.

This isn’t, to be fair, an unusual occurrence: but 7pm has come and gone, and Dennis’ final plan is pretty time constrained. Mac isn’t at the apartment, or the bar, or Charlie’s - and every missed call lodges in Dennis’ throat, makes his chest feel uncomfortably tight. He’s on his fourth lap of the block and the brink of giving in and leaving a voicemail when he sees a familiar figure walking out on the street. He rolls his window down, pulling up on the sidewalk; and the stony expression on Mac’s face when he glances up from his shoes makes the pressure in his lungs that much worse.

“I’ve been calling you,” Dennis says.

“I don’t care.”

“Mac -”

“I’ll walk,” he says. “Don’t bother asking, dude.”

“It’s thirty degrees,” Dennis snaps. “Don’t be an idiot.”

It comes out more harsh than he intends it to - but maybe that’s what does the trick, because Mac shoots him a glare but stalks slowly towards the car anyway, settling in the passenger seat. He turns his head to look out the window. Dennis exhales, long and slow, and pulls the car off the curb.

This is the point, usually, where Mac opens up the glove box and starts making suggestions. More than once they’ve spent the whole drive home arguing over what to listen to. The silence makes Dennis’ skin prickle.  
  
He waits to see how long it takes Mac to notice. He wonders, after a minute, if he’s going to notice at all - but eventually, when Dennis heads left at the intersection instead of right, Mac clears his throat.

“Wrong turning,” he mutters.  
  
“It isn’t,” Dennis says. Mac glances over at him as they drive further down the deserted street, lit up bright by the streetlamps overhead that are peeking out into the night like stars. Dennis pulls up on the curb. He cuts the engine off.  
  
“Come on.”

He undoes his seat belt and gets out the car. Mac follows suit, and Dennis walks over to the park gates, ready to push them open -

The rink is closed.  
  
Of course. Of course the goddamn rink is closed.

“Dennis,” Mac says, softly.  
  
“Doesn’t matter,” Dennis says. “Let’s - whatever, it’s freezing out here anyway -“  
  
“Dennis, wait,” Mac says, reaching out, grabbing hold of his shoulder. “Just… please.”  
  
It’s not a word well suited to Mac’s mouth. He stumbles over it. It comes out in two halves, caught on a hitch in his voice. Dennis isn’t that familiar with it either, but he finds himself hesitating anyway. Mac’s hand falls limply to his side.  
  
“Say what you were gonna say,” Mac tells him. He’s trying to sound stubborn. His voice is shaking. “Say what you were gonna say when we got here.”  
  
Dennis shuts his eyes. He breathes in deep and the air is so cold that it feels like it’s soaked his lungs completely, weighing them down.  
  
“I’ve been a shitty friend.”  
  
Mac snorts.  
  
“Thought we weren’t friends,” he mutters. It stings, but Dennis probably deserves it.  
  
“If I could go back,” Dennis says. “I - Mac, I wouldn’t have -“  
  
“Yes you  _would_ , dude. I know you. You’d fall for the exact same bullshit all over again. You’d fuck off, then you’d come back, and then you’d hate me, and I’d -“  
  
“I don’t hate you,” says Dennis, but getting a word in is getting harder. Mac’s getting louder.  
  
“And for the record, what the hell did I do to you?” he shouts. “What did I - just tell me, and I’ll stop. All right? I don’t wanna fight with you, Dennis, I hate it.”

Mac cuts off, wiping his eyes roughly on the sleeve of his jacket. Dennis breathes in, then out. In, then out.  
  
“It was a mistake,” he says.  
  
“Which part?”  
  
“I thought… I thought it would work, honestly. For both of us.”  
  
“How?” says Mac. He’d probably sound deadpan if his cheeks weren’t wet.  
  
“I don’t…” Dennis resists the urge to snap at him. “Look, I just thought if there was a little distance, maybe it wouldn’t -“  
  
“A little?” Mac says. “Dennis, you moved  _states_.”  
  
“Which felt like an appropriate reaction at the time!”  
  
“Reaction to what?”  
  
“Everything,” Dennis hisses - and it feels like someone has reached inside him and dragged the whole sorry mess up to the surface: guilt, lies, pride, all of it. Laid out bare on a snowy roadside. “Everything was… I needed…”  
  
“You could’ve told us,” Mac says, softly. “Dude, if there was something wrong, you could’ve said.”’  
  
Dennis snorts.  
  
“What, so you could all get a kick out of laughing about it?”  
  
“I wouldn’t have laughed at you,” Mac says. His dark eyes are serious and his cheeks are flushed from cold. Something in Dennis’ chest is aching.  
  
“You say that now,” Dennis mutters.  
  
“Dennis, I wouldn’t.”  
  
He doesn’t know if Mac’s telling the truth or not. He isn’t entirely sure that he cares - because Mac’s still looking at him like that, chewing on his bottom lip like it’s wronged him personally, and he’s still stood so close, his breath visible and mingling with Dennis’ in the small space between them.

“I don’t hate you,” Dennis says again. Mac‘s breathing hitches.

“You…” he starts, but doesn’t finish. He shakes his head.

When Mac drops his shoulders like that, when his eyes flick down and his lashes fan out over his cheeks, he manages to make himself look far more vulnerable than someone with Mac’s current physique has a right to look. Dennis has never understood that about him; how he can go from commanding a room to getting lost in it all in the same minute. It makes Dennis want to touch him. He’s never understood that, either.

He lifts one hand up and rests it awkwardly on Mac’s shoulder. His fingers curl into the leather of his jacket. The distance between them feels wrong, but he doesn’t know how to close it. He feels like an idiot, and out of his depth, and way too cold.

There’s another strange, long silence.

“You left me.” Mac’s voice is low, but it digs in like the point of a knife. “You  _left_ , and you only came back when you felt like it, and you’re an asshole, and you don’t get to keep pushing me around.”

He glances up. His eyelashes are wet and tacking together, either from the drizzling sleet or something else entirely. His mouth is set in a thin downwards curve. Dennis wonders if Mac always looks this exhausted, or if this is just the first time he’s noticed.

Mac closes his eyes. He takes a long, uneven breath, like he’s getting ready to say something, and Dennis steps forward and kisses him before he has time to stop himself.

It’s messy. Their mouths are just sort of mashed together, the angle’s cramped, and it’s difficult to tell if Mac’s still breathing or not because he isn’t kissing back, that much Dennis knows for certain - but then Mac shudders, full-bodied, like he’s breaking the surface of a pool after diving to the bottom, and he pulls away.

“You,” Mac says. He says it like a question, looking at Dennis like he’s never really seen him before. Dennis swallows.

“Yeah,” he says, quietly.

They stare at each other. After a second, with painstaking slowness, Mac leans in again. He hesitates a few inches away, like he’s waiting for something, and Dennis pushes forward to capture his bottom lip between his own and slide his tongue over it, slick and hot - and this, this is how a kiss should be. They fit together easy. Mac lets his mouth fall open wider, lets Dennis lick and bite as he clutches at Dennis’ shirt with a low, breathless little sound.

“Jesus Christ,” Mac breathes out, and Dennis keeps kissing him, down his jaw, his chin, winds his arms around Mac’s neck. He wants to seek out the heat of Mac’s body and get as close to it as he can. He wants to curl around him like ivy. Mac’s hands slide up under his shirt, his fingertips pressing into the small of his back. Dennis’ breathing hitches. Mac kisses him again, reverently slow and open mouthed, and his keeps his fingers where they are like he wants Dennis to stay where he is.

“Sorry the park was closed,” Dennis mutters, eventually. It’s a stupid thing to say; slipping out without him really noticing. Mac’s hands run up and down his spine.

“S’okay,” he says. “It’s cold as shit out here anyway, dude. We’d freeze.”

_Let’s go home_ , Dennis is about to suggest - but Mac beats him to it, taking his hand and tilting his head at the Range Rover.

“You wanna watch a movie?” he says. Cautious, tentative, hopeful.

Dennis slips his free hand into his pocket. His fingers curl around the crumpled flyer for Mahndo Video.

“Something festive,” he says. Mac rolls his eyes. He squeezes Dennis’ hand tighter.

*

In the end, it goes like this.

They settle on the couch, Dennis’ laptop perched on the coffee table in front of them. The opening sequence of Die Hard 2 plays out and the stream freezes every ten seconds but it barely matters, since they know the script well enough to fill in the gaps. Dennis migrates, slowly and without really noticing, from one side of the couch to the other, and by the time they hit the hour mark he’s slouched against Mac’s side, one of Mac’s hands tracing lazy patterns on his thigh.

_“Happy fuckin’ New Year,”_  says John McClane. It isn’t really, not quite, because there’s two minutes to go til midnight. Dennis pauses the movie anyway.

“This is the best part, Dennis,” Mac points out. Dennis frowns.

“No, it isn’t,” he says - and in the end they miss it, countdown and all, too caught up in the resultant argument over Die Hard 2’s finest moments to notice - but at 12:01 Mac kisses him soft and slow, holding Dennis’ face in his hands and letting Dennis push his way onto his lap. The fireworks down at the waterfront rumble faintly outside the window, lighting the sky up bright, and it’s not so bad. It’s not bad at all.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. one day. i will come up w proper fic titles. instead of just using lyrics from whichever song i happen to b listening to at the time. unfortunately today is not that day
> 
> 2\. as some of u may already kno, john mcclane doesn't say 'happy fuckin new year' in die hard 2 :( i was skim reading the original script online and became charmed by that line and how appropriate it was to this fic, only to find out that it never made it into the actual film. rip
> 
> 3\. happy new year my loves!! sunny was an unexpected bright spot for me in 2018 and i've met so many wonderful, beautiful ppl thru this show. i love u all and i hope this year treats u good <3
> 
> [tumblr](https://macfoundhispride.tumblr.com)


End file.
